In 1997, the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas had a stacked lineup for its December 5 and 6 concerts. The annual charity concert weekend boasted performances from No Doubt, Beck, Rancid, Smash Mouth, Blink-182, David Bowie, Green Day, Portishead, and more big names.
Up-and-coming singer-songwriter Fiona Apple was also on the bill. The show came a year after her debut album Tidal dropped, when she was just 18 years old. This caught the attention of Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. Despite never having met her, he admired Apple for her raw songwriting.
Navarro allegedly told MTV News at the time that he wasn’t even keen to play the KROQ Christmas concert. “That was something I kind of didn’t want to do,” he said. But finding out Fiona was playing made it seem worth it. “I was a fan, and I also had this distant crush on her,” he admitted in an interview featured in Drew Fortune’s 2019 book No Encore!
At that time, Navarro was a heavy drug user, and hasn’t held back in describing that time in his life. In the aforementioned interview, he explained that he became really good at extracting his own blood into an empty syringe. He would then use his blood in all manner of unhinged shenanigans.
“In the midst of my insanity, I thought it would be a very romantic gesture to go into Fiona Apple’s dressing room, and write a message on her wall in my own blood,” he said. “In my deranged head, I viewed it as sending her a message with the blood that pumps through my heart to her.”
Navarro felt that he and Apple could relate to being tortured, passionate artists. Despite never having met each other, Navarro, in his drug-addled logic, felt a parasocial connection to Apple through her music. Keep in mind that Fiona Apple was only 20 at this time, and Navarro was a full 10 years older. “In my head, it was a grand, romantic statement that she would find very touching,” he said.
Dave Navarro On Leaving a Note For Fiona Apple In His Blood
Safe to say, Fiona Apple did not find Dave Navarro’s blood note very touching. Before she arrived at Universal Amphitheater for the show, he went into her dressing room with his syringe. The note he left might have been encouraging had it been written on literally anything else than the wall in blood.
The exact words differ depending on who tells the story. In 2019, Navarro said he wrote, “Dear Fiona, I hope you have a great time tonight. Love Dave.” A similar report by Kerrang! said he wrote simply, “Dear Fiona, have fun. Love, D.N.” Whatever the exact phrasing was, Navarro said there was “no innuendo or poetry in the message.” Still, he admitted that his coked-up logic saw it as “a very subtle, kind, romantic gesture.”
Management at Universal Amphitheater found out about the note and was not pleased. Navarro was brought into a meeting with venue staff and his management team for a reprimand. But he apparently didn’t see the weirdness of his gesture at the time. A hazmat team then came to clean up the blood. Again, Navarro was more devastated that Fiona Apple might not see his message than by the fact that what he did was kind of freaky.
“In my drugged-out state, I couldn’t comprehend that a message written in syringe blood, from someone she had never met, might have been frightening,” he admitted. “Had someone come into my dressing room and written a message in blood to me, I would have thought it was incredible. That’s how sick I was.”
Writing a Note To a Girl in Blood? That’s Kind Of Weird, Dave
In hindsight, it’s clear that Dave Navarro understands that what he did back then crossed a lot of lines. He admitted that he was sick, addicted, and reckless in the depths of his drug use. Still, a note on the wall in blood would be just another entry on the list of unfortunate things Fiona Apple has had to deal with.
At the time, KROQ DJs heard about the note and expressed disbelief on the air. Dave Navarro, however, took it upon himself to prove that he did, in fact, write a note on the wall in blood. He called the station to set the record straight.
“I truly believe that the music Fiona Apple courageously shares with the world comes from the beauty and pain that flows from within her heart,” he said. “I simply chose to thank her for her honesty by leaving her a little note that comes from the beauty and pain that flows from within my heart…literally.”
Photo by Al Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The post On This Day in 1997, Dave Navarro Tells Fiona Apple to ‘Have Fun’ by Writing It on the Wall in Blood appeared first on VICE.
